So… Why This Blog?

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, Forrester Research.

I started this blog because I am passionate about how technology – specifically wireless – can impact businesses and how they engage with their customers. I worked as a management consultant for a number of years before becoming a wireless industry analyst at Jupiter Research. At Jupiter, I found that I was spending a lot of time interpreting our technology (and in my case wireless) research for regular consumer product and service companies. I figured, “why not write mobile research directly for these non-telco companies,” as I call them.

In 2006, I launched mobile marketing and media coverage at Jupiter. When Forrester Research acquired Jupiter Research in August 2008, I decided with my corporate transition to make a coverage transition as well. I wanted to expand upon this research I’d started at Jupiter and look at mobile strategies more broadly. I wanted to conduct research and advise our clients on how mobile can help them achieve a wide range of business objectives.

Every consumer product and services company should be considering how they will engage with their customers within the mobile environment. Many clients ask me, “How will I know when I should have a mobile presence?” I ask, “How did you know when you needed a Web presence? Was it when 5% of your customers were online? 10% Was it when your competitors had a website? When did you decide to add rich media to your website? What percentage of your customers was connecting via broadband?” I ask many of our clients this question. The answer with most is, “The decision was strategic. We knew we needed a web presence. We sensed that the Internet would be an important medium for us to engage with our customers.” Mobile will be the same. A mobile presence isn’t table stakes today, but it will be.

The second most common question I get from our clients is, “I’ve built an iPhone application. Now what do I do?” An iPhone application alone is not a mobile strategy. Also, choosing to build an iPhone application is a technology decision. It is the last in a long line of decisions that will lead to a solid mobile presence. See our research on this topic.

I publish about one piece of research a month that contributes to the mobile strategy toolkit for our clients. My hope is that this blog will serve the purpose of offering more frequent content and insights to our clients. Besides, blogs are fun, and I get to publish my photos, too. I hope you enjoy both the content and the photos.